Going Dutch in Beijing

Introduction The United Nations conducted a global survey. The only question asked was, "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?" The survey was a failure. In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant; in India they didn't know what "honest" meant; in Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant; in China they didn't know what "opinion" meant; in the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant; in South America they didn't know what "please" meant; and in the United States they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant. This little joke, circulated on the Web by disaffected UN staff, points to a central problem of our high-tech, easily spanned globe. Even as we reach a time when a woman in Latvia can communicate in a second with a man in Patagonia and, if she can afford to, fly to see him in twenty-four hours, age-old local manners and attitudes remain deeply rooted. The possibility of making an embarrassing or downright offensive faux pas becomes ever more frequent. Some intercultural boo-boos will cause little trouble. The fair-minded Finn who insists on "going Dutch" with Chinese business colleagues at a restaurant in Beijing can be tactfully put right; the polite Japanese who arrives at a Parisian dinner party bearing a bottle of fine vintage wine may suffer no worse put-down than a quizzically raised eyebrow; and the Californian who goes out for an evening in Togo wearing beautiful native beads around her neck will be no more than an embarrassed laughingstock. Other mistakes may make for bigger problems. The American businessman who arrives at a meeting in Saudi Arabia wearing a tie covered in amusing pink pigs may well find that he's lost his contract. Likewise, the Englishman who gives the hoot of a fellow driver in Iran a cheery thumbs-up shouldn't be surprised to find himself being run off the road at the next traffic circle. More innate differences go deeper. However much you tell a Briton or a Swede that forming a line is regarded as a waste of time in Italy, China, or the Middle East, their cultural DNA will still insist that there is something immoral about a person without the basic sense of fairness to wait their turn, while a German who is kept sitting in an outer office for an hour and a half before a meeting in Brazil may find it hard not to treat the lack of punctuality as a personal slight. The march of globalization is being held up all over the world by similar misunderstandings about the importance of deadlines, the respect paid to rules and contracts, the morality of favoring family over outsiders, and the right work-life balance. There's no escaping these variations in attitude and ways of behaving, which have grown up over centuries and are as attuned to local circumstances as the indigenous flora and fauna. Ever-increasing travel and migrationnot to mention the powerful cross-cultural influences of film and TVare, of course, changing things everywhere. In Japan people point and catch each other's eye in a way they never used to; new Russians look on the old strictures of nyekulturny (uncultured behavior) with an ironic chuckle; in the Middle East young women wear clubbing gear under their abayas. But as far as underlying culture is concerned, we do not yet liveas some pundits would have us believein a "global village" or a "flat world." Even if most Asians are now thoroughly familiar with the Western handshake and shrewder American businesspeople have learned not to rush things in China, you can still oMcCrum, Mark is the author of 'Going Dutch in Beijing', published 2008 under ISBN 9780805086768 and ISBN 0805086765.